Am I Nuts? Is This Really Happening?

[lizardsmells]

I've been watching Kazi eat lately. He gets fed twice a day and it stays out unless it's something that can go bad until it's time for the next meal.

I've started noticing bits of Nutriberries and whole unshelled almonds in his toy basket. I thought he was just being messy and dropping them in there, but he gets dinner around 5pm and he ate his Nutriberries and some other bits then that I'd given him.

Well now he's back up there eating out of his toy basket. Usually I recycle any almonds he doesn't shell and eat, but one day I didn't because they'd gotten a little sticky and messy so I threw them out. I noticed the food in his toy basket a few days later and now he's got 3 unshelled almonds up there and countless pieces of Nutriberry.

Is he saving food he likes from being tossed out? Because it sort of looks like that from where I'm sitting. But I also recognize I could be utterly nuts.

 

[roxynoodle]

He might be. He might also be trying to feed it because he likes it.

 

[Echo]

I bet it is his late night snack! LOL

 

[BillsBirds]

Sounds like he's storing away goodies, in time of plenty, for eating later on. Was he a rescue? I've noticed that occasionally, a parrot that has been starved has learned to store food for later. Especially favorite foods. Eventually they learn that food is relatively plentiful here, and I don't need to store it away. In rereading your original post, I realized this is a new behavior. How long have you had him?

 

[lizardsmells]

Bill, he is a rescue and he does have some odd food behaviors like eating his favorite fruits and veggies over his dish carefully so what falls falls in his dish. Although, to think of it, that behavior has diminished quite a bit. Presumably because he gets lots of fruits and veggies now with plenty of choices.

I've had him since mid-December but had interacted with him for several months at the rescue beforehand (I volunteer there).

He gets fed on his play gym, but his cage always has pellets and water in it so he never feels like he has to go hungry. At first he ate most of the pellets in his cage, but lately he hasn't been touching them, so I'm assuming he's feeling more confident about his food supply.

He sees me dump out his dish and clean it out because he's in the kitchen with me on his t-stand when I do. I even commented when I threw the almonds out and he saw me do it. Before that I can't recall ever seeing anything but the occasional almond shell in his toy basket, but of course that doesn't mean there weren't any there. He's offered two per meal and he'd usually leave one or both pretty frequently. I had noticed that he'd been eating all his almonds (so I thought) lately and figured he'd just gotten a taste for them again. But now I know he'd just been stashing them.

 

[roxynoodle]

I've had a couple of cats that overate like crazy when they first came in my home. One was in the Humane Society where she had to battle with close to 100 cats for food. The other was a cat that was abandoned here, but was always fed by me and my neighbor. Once they realized food was always going to be there, they stopped that behavior and got into better shape. But, it's kind of weird that Kazi just started this, as Bill also mentioned. Might a bird do this if it's getting ready to find a mate and start a family? That could be on Kazi's mind.